Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/366

 Chand is propi- tiated. ij underground, rendirg the very entrails of the earth, some with more heads than one and others without any head at all. Goblins called Kavandhas and Vetals worked destruction on the royal forces, whose heroic feats in arms, seemed like child's play before the destructive agencies unloosed by Chandi. The. goblins took the skulls of dead soldiers, and filling | them with warm blood, drank from them in wild> and horrid ecstacy. They picked up heads that_ rolled in the fields, and with human entrails threaded ] them into ghastly garlands and [0 1(1)61) 01. and danced. The witches cut corpses to pieces like butchers and dressed them, and sold them to new comers of their own sort. The heads of ele- phants were used as balls, with which a horrid-faced — | hob-goblin played, and others came to join the party, who like the fabled anthropophagi, had heads — beneath their shoulders. There, aloof from the field i of destruction, sat Chandi like a mother, and ~ Crimanta clung to her, like a helpless child, filled with courage and confidence, as is the baby by its ~ mother's side. King Calivahana heard the story and himself came to the field. There he witnessed this spec- Hf tacle of destruction, and felt that it was Chand}’s wrath that had overtaken his army. He presented — himself with reverence and humilation before the — goddess, and worshipped ber, praying a thousand | forgivenesses. Chandi was propitiated. She restored. the army to life and king Calivahana gave his — daughter in marriage to Crimanta with half his kingdom for dowry. By the grace of ChandI, / the king now also saw the wonderful spectacle